in the intial survey. Little remained
in place from the original platform.

Vestibules in general are highly susceptible to
deterioration.Open platforms are even
worse off.Every rain storm, passing
insect, or even passing thief has open access.For instance, when the car was just a few years old, the pastor woke up
one morning to learn that his milk can had been stolen from the end platform.Apparently that Sunday’s sermon reminded
parishioners that “thou shall not steal!”

The only surviving section of the

original platform end beam (top) is com-

pared with the new end beam (bottom).

The Messenger of Peace had very little to offer about the
platform to researchers and rehabilitation specialists as they put their work
plan together.Fortunately, a portion of
the original end beam had been recovered from the seaside where the car was
used as a cabin; it confirmed the basic dimensions. One end of the car
had nearly complete platform and draft sills and those were used to make copies.

"B" end of car 5 at Novinger, MO.

Image courtesty of Adair County

Historical Society.

Other resources played an important role too. Researcher's visited other Barney and Smith-built cars from the era looking for clues, but most other cars had been retrofitted with more modern accessories from the early 20th Century. The Adair County Historical Society had a wonderful photo of the end platform taken in circa 1903 at Novinger, MO and this proved to be the most valuable guide.

New platform and draft sills are at-

tached to the car with new fasteners.

Once basic dimensions were established, the rehabilitation
team’s next challenge was to find large dimension white oak timbers, the
species originally used for the chapel car platform and draft sills, and
platform end beam.Oak is an unusual
wood for its density, resistance to decay, its hardness, and for the challenges
in drying green wood.A phenomenon
called cell collapse often occurs when forcing large oak timbers to dry and severely
reduces strength.Air drying of green
oak timbers is effective but takes years.So what to do?Recycled oak beams
from an Amish barn in Ohio!

A platform end beam is milled on

the Northfield chain mortiser.

The timbers arrived in mid winter and the team found they
had been stored outside.The timber was
cleaned off and any remaining fasteners were removed.Holes or other minor defects were filled with
epoxy or wood plugs were glued in.Then
the process of preparing the timbers began.

A large slick was used to clean up the

initial cuts made by the mortise machine

There is always a need for good hand

tools when rehabilitating old wood cars!

Four large men were required to guide the 500 pound timbers through the
Oliver planer.During this process,
several pockets of insect damage were discovered which had to be treated and
repaired.But in the end, some really
great looking timbers were produced for the chapel car.

Just a sample of the steel hardware that

is unseen inside and beneath the plat-

forms.

Was there more to it? Well, yes. One of the unsung heros of the project was Ray M. who repaired or made new the steel tension and tie rods that hold everything together. Original steel was used wherever possible and was connected to new material with a turnbuckle. Ray spent many hours custom machining hardware to fit in tight places where it would not be noticed.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿There were also new castings required to make it all work. Fortunately there was at least one copy of everything so the team was able to work with Mackenzie Castings in Arlington, WA to have copies made in ductile iron. And they did fabulous work too!
﻿﻿The end railing is missing from the car and will have to be fabricated. Fortunately, the great folks at Prairie Village in South Dakota have allowed the Messenger of Peace researchers to photograph and measure the railings on their chapel car Emmanuel. These railings appear to be identical to the Messenger of Peace but surprisingly a number of other details including the platform end beam design and layout are not exactly the same even though the cars were built to the same plan. The railings will be fabricated when additional project funding is secured.

The lead rehabilitation specialist Kevin P.

guides the mounting bolts for the plat-

form end beam into the matching holes.

﻿﻿﻿﻿Platform and draft sills are approximately 16 feet
long.The platform end beam is the width
of the car and weighs over 200 pounds.So a lot of special handling was required to maneuver the timbers around to the other woodworking machines.And in the end - or at least as of May 2012 - the Messenger
of Peace has regained its platform to preach!